I suspect that your equation of Mishna=Oral Torah is inaccurate. What do you say about d'Rabbanans (which the Mishna is full of)? Are they included in TSBP? Or are they a separate category?
עד שיהיו כל הדינין גלויין לקטן ולגדול בדין כל מצוה ומצוה, ובדין כל הדברים שתיקנו חכמים ונביאים: כללו של דבר, כדי שלא יהא אדם צריך לחיבור אחר בעולם בדין מדיני ישראל; אלא יהיה חיבור זה מקבץ לתורה שבעל פה כולה, עם התקנות והמנהגות והגזירות שנעשו מימות משה רבנו ועד חיבור התלמוד, וכמו שפירשו לנו הגאונים בכל חיבוריהן, שחיברו אחר התלמוד. לפיכך קראתי שם חיבור זה משנה תורה--לפי שאדם קורא תורה שבכתב תחילה, ואחר כך קורא בזה, ויודע ממנו תורה שבעל פה כולה, ואינו צריך לקרות ספר אחר ביניהם
I would think that is a ראיה לסתור also, as he says אלא יהיה חיבור זה מקבץ לתורה שבעל פה כולה, *עם* התקנות והמנהגות והגזירות. It sounds like they are a separate category than TSBP. Perhaps you are coming from the end where he says ואחר כך קורא בזה, ויודע ממנו תורה שבעל פה כולה without mentioning takanos specifically, but I feel the overall reading of the introduction implies that they are not the same.
I'm definitely looking at the later passage (ויודע ממנו תורה שבעל פה כולה). But the real reason I'm so confident taking this approach is that R' Yakov Weinberg was quite explicit about it in his sefer - and at great length.
Also, the tefilin found in Kumran had the decaloge and so do the tefilin of the Karaites. Analyse this! Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam isn't all there is to it: Lubavicher Rebbe used to put on 4 pairs of tefilin.
The real problem is that the oral transmition of information doesn't work. This is obvious to all of us from our daily lives and from the study of Talmud.
This study illustraits and explains why it is so. Do a web search for 'The Basic Psychology of Rumor' and you will find a 12 page PDF.
Based on something from R' David Gottlieb I once read, I disagree. He noted how everyone is familiar with all the fine details of the traffic code despite the fact that none of us ever read it (I have to admit that I did once download Ontario's Highway Traffic Act, but I'm hardly considered normal). Nevertheless, we all know what to do at a Stop sign and (more or less) how far away from a fire hydrant we need to park. That's a perfect example of a successful complicated and finely-detailed oral law.
R' Gottlieb continued that the reason we often find it so hard to remember our Torah is because those aren't details that we're likely to desperately need in our daily lives. That, observed R' Gottlieb, could be why the Mishna only needed writing down *after* the mikdash was destroyed and so many thousands of kodshim and teharos halachos were no longer in daily use.
Rabbi David Gottlieb was an iconoclast, when I had known him 45 years ago in Yerushalaim. Today he is an appologist. I'm offering a study of the pscychology of rumors to explain the phenomenon and you are countering with traffic rules?
The diagreements and the lose of clarity is at the level of tanoim and the amoroim. עין תחת עין is a מחלוקת. No other then Rabbi Eliezer holds that it'is כפשוטו. This wasn't an imoprtant or easy subject to remember?
What is needed is a different understanding of what is Oral Torah and how we got to where we are now.
But first it's necessary to understand why an accurate oral transmission of information over GENERATIONS is an impossbility. The concept is not just flawed, it's false. It never happened, nor could it have happened for it contradicts human nature itself and human ability.
Regardless of R' Gottlieb's personal allegiances, his traffic law analogy is strong. there are hundreds of very subtle details we all know despite never having read them and having no direct access to the written source. Theoretical psychological studies - while perhaps insightful - are hardly a useful argument against empirical experience.
If we were to catalog all ongoing halachic disagreements (something I'd like to attempt one day), I think we'd find that nearly all of them involved unusual and uncommon cases - including עין תחת עין: when was the last time you had any direct connection to a case of intentional, violent eye gouging?
More than 30 years ago, R' Moshe Blau pointed out to me a number of excellent illustrative examples: the debate over the order of berachos for havdala came at the end of a generations-long period where Jews were too poor to afford wine; the original dispute over the order of פרשיות תפילין - which long predated רש"י ור"ת - reflected the fact that people seldom - if ever - open their own tefilin and see their parshios...
New tefilin were written constantly for all the צאן קודשים reaching their manhood at the age of 13! Beis Hillel and Bith Shami didn't do havdolah on wine? They would be moser nefesh to do so! And where? In Eretz Isroel that has always had a wine industry! What about Porah Aduma or Eglah Arufa? לא שבקת חיים לתורה שבעל פה !
The study was not theoretical, obviously, but was expiremental and repeated 40 times with identical results! זיל גמר.
> New tefilin were written constantly for all the צאן קודשים reaching their manhood at the age of 13!
Yes. But there's no reason to think the consumers ever saw their own parshiyos (much like today). R' Blau noted that he had personally seen tefilin parshiyos found at Masada that were 100% posul according to all shitos - even according to all contemporary shitos. The point is that there have always been sofrim who were ignorant to varying degrees. Given their lack of oversight, it's hardly surprising that discrepancies/disputes crept into practice.
> They would be moser nefesh to do so
I don't think we should ascribe modern chassidishe sensibilities onto Hillel and Shamai. I personally think that they would have been perfectly happy observing the law.
> In Eretz Isroel that has always had a wine industry!
I'm just quoting a Gemara (Berachos 33a): נחזי היכן תקון א"ל בתחלה קבעוה בתפלה העשירו קבעוה על הכוס הענו חזרו וקבעוה בתפלה
> The study was not theoretical, obviously, but was expiremental and repeated 40 times with identical results!
And the traffic law "experiment" has been successfully repeated millions of times!
There is no traffic law experiment, my friend. People know a few basic laws and many are quite ignorant. I don't know why you keep bringong it up. Havdolah was enacted for everyone, but the ones doing those enactments ought to know.
'The point is that there have always been sofrim who were ignorant to varying degrees. Given their lack of oversight, it's hardly surprising that discrepancies/disputes crept into practice.'
1. So the ignorant sofrim confused the guardians of the law?
2. What can be said about a system that entusts the responsibility for Torah commandments to the ignorant? Weren't they also responsible for writing the Sefer Torah? The tanniom and amoroim didn't check to make sure that their tefilin and mezuzos were kosher?
I would add, contrary to what the rejecters of TSBP think, the existence of machlokes is the one of the strongest proofs to TSBP there is. If these were just made-up customs, what is all the machlokes about? It makes no sense. If only makes sense if they were trying to recover and reconstruct something that was (partially) lost, and ended up arguing about it.
How many other religions have the type of machlokes we have in Shas? This type of machlokes is only possible among people who knew that there was a law, and forgot several details.
On that general point it's also worth remembering R' Hirsch's attack on Frankel: why would the very people who "made up" the 13 middos of R' Yishmael (including Rabbi Akiva) allow themselves to be killed when the derasha requiring mesiras nefesh came from those made-up middos (kal v'chomer, I believe)?
This is unsettlingly similar to Christians who argue that the early Christians gave up their lives (to the Romans) rather than renounce their faith, which testifies to the truth of what they claimed (that they saw Jesus for real etc).
I think a better argument for the truth of the 13 middos is that it would be impossible to post facto retcon such a convoluted system onto an existing system without immediately arriving at insolvable logical paradoxes. Whilst the 13 middos to create some difficulties, the Gemara's resolutions actually achieve a holistically synthesises whole that is greater than the sum of it's parts.
I suspect that your equation of Mishna=Oral Torah is inaccurate. What do you say about d'Rabbanans (which the Mishna is full of)? Are they included in TSBP? Or are they a separate category?
The Rambam definitely includes (at least many) d'rabbanans in TSBP. See his intro to Mishna Torah.
What do you see there? I see the opposite-
כָּל הַמִּצְווֹת שֶׁנִּתְּנוּ לוֹ לְמֹשֶׁה בְּסִינַי – בְּפֵרוּשָׁן נִתְּנוּ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמָר "וְאֶתְּנָה לְךָ אֶת־לֻחֹת הָאֶבֶן, וְהַתּוֹרָה וְהַמִּצְוָה" (שמות כד, יב): "תּוֹרָה", זוֹ תּוֹרָה שֶׁבִּכְתָב; וּ"מִצְוָה", זֶה פֵּרוּשָׁהּ. וְצִוָּנוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת הַתּוֹרָה, עַל פִּי הַמִּצְוָה. וּמִצְוָה זוֹ, הִיא הַנִּקְרֵאת תּוֹרָה שֶׁבְּעַל פֶּה.
See this:
עד שיהיו כל הדינין גלויין לקטן ולגדול בדין כל מצוה ומצוה, ובדין כל הדברים שתיקנו חכמים ונביאים: כללו של דבר, כדי שלא יהא אדם צריך לחיבור אחר בעולם בדין מדיני ישראל; אלא יהיה חיבור זה מקבץ לתורה שבעל פה כולה, עם התקנות והמנהגות והגזירות שנעשו מימות משה רבנו ועד חיבור התלמוד, וכמו שפירשו לנו הגאונים בכל חיבוריהן, שחיברו אחר התלמוד. לפיכך קראתי שם חיבור זה משנה תורה--לפי שאדם קורא תורה שבכתב תחילה, ואחר כך קורא בזה, ויודע ממנו תורה שבעל פה כולה, ואינו צריך לקרות ספר אחר ביניהם
I would think that is a ראיה לסתור also, as he says אלא יהיה חיבור זה מקבץ לתורה שבעל פה כולה, *עם* התקנות והמנהגות והגזירות. It sounds like they are a separate category than TSBP. Perhaps you are coming from the end where he says ואחר כך קורא בזה, ויודע ממנו תורה שבעל פה כולה without mentioning takanos specifically, but I feel the overall reading of the introduction implies that they are not the same.
I'm definitely looking at the later passage (ויודע ממנו תורה שבעל פה כולה). But the real reason I'm so confident taking this approach is that R' Yakov Weinberg was quite explicit about it in his sefer - and at great length.
Important to note the Rama on Y"D 246:4: וי"א שבתלמוד בבלי שהוא בלול במקרא במשנה וגמרא אדם יוצא ידי חובתו בשביל הכל
Also, the tefilin found in Kumran had the decaloge and so do the tefilin of the Karaites. Analyse this! Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam isn't all there is to it: Lubavicher Rebbe used to put on 4 pairs of tefilin.
Proofs from Karaites and Essenes? What's next, proofs from Christians?
The real problem is that the oral transmition of information doesn't work. This is obvious to all of us from our daily lives and from the study of Talmud.
This study illustraits and explains why it is so. Do a web search for 'The Basic Psychology of Rumor' and you will find a 12 page PDF.
Based on something from R' David Gottlieb I once read, I disagree. He noted how everyone is familiar with all the fine details of the traffic code despite the fact that none of us ever read it (I have to admit that I did once download Ontario's Highway Traffic Act, but I'm hardly considered normal). Nevertheless, we all know what to do at a Stop sign and (more or less) how far away from a fire hydrant we need to park. That's a perfect example of a successful complicated and finely-detailed oral law.
R' Gottlieb continued that the reason we often find it so hard to remember our Torah is because those aren't details that we're likely to desperately need in our daily lives. That, observed R' Gottlieb, could be why the Mishna only needed writing down *after* the mikdash was destroyed and so many thousands of kodshim and teharos halachos were no longer in daily use.
Rabbi David Gottlieb was an iconoclast, when I had known him 45 years ago in Yerushalaim. Today he is an appologist. I'm offering a study of the pscychology of rumors to explain the phenomenon and you are countering with traffic rules?
The diagreements and the lose of clarity is at the level of tanoim and the amoroim. עין תחת עין is a מחלוקת. No other then Rabbi Eliezer holds that it'is כפשוטו. This wasn't an imoprtant or easy subject to remember?
What is needed is a different understanding of what is Oral Torah and how we got to where we are now.
But first it's necessary to understand why an accurate oral transmission of information over GENERATIONS is an impossbility. The concept is not just flawed, it's false. It never happened, nor could it have happened for it contradicts human nature itself and human ability.
Regardless of R' Gottlieb's personal allegiances, his traffic law analogy is strong. there are hundreds of very subtle details we all know despite never having read them and having no direct access to the written source. Theoretical psychological studies - while perhaps insightful - are hardly a useful argument against empirical experience.
If we were to catalog all ongoing halachic disagreements (something I'd like to attempt one day), I think we'd find that nearly all of them involved unusual and uncommon cases - including עין תחת עין: when was the last time you had any direct connection to a case of intentional, violent eye gouging?
More than 30 years ago, R' Moshe Blau pointed out to me a number of excellent illustrative examples: the debate over the order of berachos for havdala came at the end of a generations-long period where Jews were too poor to afford wine; the original dispute over the order of פרשיות תפילין - which long predated רש"י ור"ת - reflected the fact that people seldom - if ever - open their own tefilin and see their parshios...
My dear friend, ישמעו אזניך מה שאתה מוציא מפ'ך!
New tefilin were written constantly for all the צאן קודשים reaching their manhood at the age of 13! Beis Hillel and Bith Shami didn't do havdolah on wine? They would be moser nefesh to do so! And where? In Eretz Isroel that has always had a wine industry! What about Porah Aduma or Eglah Arufa? לא שבקת חיים לתורה שבעל פה !
The study was not theoretical, obviously, but was expiremental and repeated 40 times with identical results! זיל גמר.
> New tefilin were written constantly for all the צאן קודשים reaching their manhood at the age of 13!
Yes. But there's no reason to think the consumers ever saw their own parshiyos (much like today). R' Blau noted that he had personally seen tefilin parshiyos found at Masada that were 100% posul according to all shitos - even according to all contemporary shitos. The point is that there have always been sofrim who were ignorant to varying degrees. Given their lack of oversight, it's hardly surprising that discrepancies/disputes crept into practice.
> They would be moser nefesh to do so
I don't think we should ascribe modern chassidishe sensibilities onto Hillel and Shamai. I personally think that they would have been perfectly happy observing the law.
> In Eretz Isroel that has always had a wine industry!
I'm just quoting a Gemara (Berachos 33a): נחזי היכן תקון א"ל בתחלה קבעוה בתפלה העשירו קבעוה על הכוס הענו חזרו וקבעוה בתפלה
> The study was not theoretical, obviously, but was expiremental and repeated 40 times with identical results!
And the traffic law "experiment" has been successfully repeated millions of times!
There is no traffic law experiment, my friend. People know a few basic laws and many are quite ignorant. I don't know why you keep bringong it up. Havdolah was enacted for everyone, but the ones doing those enactments ought to know.
'The point is that there have always been sofrim who were ignorant to varying degrees. Given their lack of oversight, it's hardly surprising that discrepancies/disputes crept into practice.'
1. So the ignorant sofrim confused the guardians of the law?
2. What can be said about a system that entusts the responsibility for Torah commandments to the ignorant? Weren't they also responsible for writing the Sefer Torah? The tanniom and amoroim didn't check to make sure that their tefilin and mezuzos were kosher?
I would add, contrary to what the rejecters of TSBP think, the existence of machlokes is the one of the strongest proofs to TSBP there is. If these were just made-up customs, what is all the machlokes about? It makes no sense. If only makes sense if they were trying to recover and reconstruct something that was (partially) lost, and ended up arguing about it.
How many other religions have the type of machlokes we have in Shas? This type of machlokes is only possible among people who knew that there was a law, and forgot several details.
I argued this point at length in my essay here https://irrationalistmodoxism.substack.com/p/disputes-a-proof-against-torah-shebaal
On that general point it's also worth remembering R' Hirsch's attack on Frankel: why would the very people who "made up" the 13 middos of R' Yishmael (including Rabbi Akiva) allow themselves to be killed when the derasha requiring mesiras nefesh came from those made-up middos (kal v'chomer, I believe)?
This is unsettlingly similar to Christians who argue that the early Christians gave up their lives (to the Romans) rather than renounce their faith, which testifies to the truth of what they claimed (that they saw Jesus for real etc).
I think a better argument for the truth of the 13 middos is that it would be impossible to post facto retcon such a convoluted system onto an existing system without immediately arriving at insolvable logical paradoxes. Whilst the 13 middos to create some difficulties, the Gemara's resolutions actually achieve a holistically synthesises whole that is greater than the sum of it's parts.